The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2924, 3 July 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1872.

Some years ago we published an article from the Nelson Colonist , commenting very unfavorably on the New Zealand University. While we cordially agree with a good deal of what was said by the writer of that article, we feel bound to say that we think that the work which is being done by this University useful and necessary work : we might say, in a young Colony like this, the most useful work which a University can do ; more especially as the towns of New Zealand are for the most part of only moderate size and very much scattered. It was said in the article referred to that because only thirty-five candidates presented themselves at the last examination for scholarships representing a money value of £I,OOO, the whole thing was a failure. We do not think so*, on the contrary, we believe that it was a very satisfactory thing to find that there were so many qualified to compete in so difficult an examination. In this Province we have three High School scholarships offered by the Provincial Government, and though th is examination is a comparatively easy one, only about twenty-five or thirty candidates presented themselves at the examination. If these were the only boys who were benefited by the scholarships, it would be easy to see that the £2OO a-year spent by the Government on this object would be very ill spent —Lejeune vcmdralt pas la, chandelle. But the fact is, that besides the number of boys who succeed in qualifying themselves for the examination, at least five times as many do not succeed, but receive very great benefit through their attempts to do so, and from the training they have undergone ; at the same time it is not too much to say that this same examination raises more or less the standard of instruction in every elementary school in the Province, In exactly the same way the examinations instituted by the New Zealand University are calculated to raise the tone of every Grammar and High School throughout the Colony. Of the thirty-five candidates who went up the other day, only five can hope to gain the reward offered, but the others will be almost equally benefited ; and so will numbers of others who have been trained for this examination but have failed to advance far enough to induce their teachers to think that they had a fair chance of success, while there can be no doubt that teachers will be very much stimulated and encouraged to exert themselves with regard to lower classes of their schools, in order that they may, in coming years, have a supply of good recruits for their upper On the whole, we cannot help thinking that no impartial person can deny that this part of the work of the University is useful and most necessary. It is also implied in the article in question, that the sums which have been voted to enable the various schools and colleges of the Colony to increase their teaching power and to enable them to overtake the additional work which will be entailed upon them, have been misspent, because they are already sufficiently endowed ; and this too after it has been stated that those institutions will not be able to do the higher work without disarranging their ordinary work—that is to say, almost in the same breath, that they are suitable for the worlc, and that they are not suitable, unless the writer is prepared to maintain that no amount of money could graft on to an ordinary school a thoroughly efficient college. We hardly think he would be prepared to do this. It is quite possible that some of the affiliated colleges are already sufficiently furnished with teaching power \ but from what wc know of the subject, there is not a single one

that has proper apparatus. Natural science is fast becoming a very important branch of education, and all who know anything about the subject can understand that it is quite impossible to make any progress worthy of the name in these subjects without the proper means of illustrating the books that may be read or the lectures that may be given. As Professor Huxley says in his “ Introduction to Elementary Physiology ” —“ It will be well for those who attempt to study Elementary Physiology, to bear in mind the important truth that the knowledge of science which is attainable by more reading, though infinitely better than ignorance, is knowledge of a very different kind from that which arises from direct contact with fact j and that tire worth of the pursuit of science as an intellectual discipline is almost lost by those who seek it only in books.” Of course the same holds good of other sciences. It follows, then, that no school of any pretensions should be without at least a small but well-fitted chemical laboratory, a well-selected lot of instruments for illustrating the various branches of “physics,” and a tolerably complete collection of fossils and minerals. The subsidies of this year might therefore be well spent in the purchase of apparatus alone ] and if the New Zealand University did no other work than this, it would not have •xisted altogether in vain. But though we have thus far spoken in commendation of what has been done by the Council of the University, we must at the same time say that we cannot see the slightest reason why all this could not be quite as well done by an University with a “ local habitation ” —by the Otago University. We do not object to the New Zealand University because it “goes about doing good ” —quite the contrary ; but we should much prefer that it had some sort of solid basis. In short, we should like to see the New Zealand University grafted on to the Otago one. Both, we believe, are at present imperfect : joined together, they would form an excellent Colonial University, doing at the same time the work of the London University in ascertaining and stamping with approval merit, wherever found or however brought to light; and along with doing this, the teaching work of a Cambridge or an Edinburgh on a smaller scale. And what is to prevent this amalgamation ? Nothing, we are persuaded, but petty jealousies on the one hand, and somewhat unreasonable stiff-neckedness on the other. Canterbury and Wellington are jealous of Otago’s educational ascendancy. Dunedin insists that no town shall enjoy the advantages which she has unless it be prepared, though only onefifth the size, to furnish forth a college equal in size to its own, and of exactly the same pattern. We earnestly hope that the Legislature will see its way to step in and put an end to this unseemly and useless rivalry, and that before the end of the coming session the long-looked-for amalgamation between the two Universities may be an accomplished t fact.